


Campaign in Poetry

by thymos



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Gen, M/M, Political AU, Political Campaigns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-11-29 10:18:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thymos/pseuds/thymos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras is in the running to be the youngest ever president of the United States, an independent candidate facing off a media hopelessly bewitched by the brilliance of this impossibly resolute politician and his charming, cheeky running mate, Courfeyrac. They don’t know what to make of this band of youths who speak of lady liberty as if she were flesh, headed by campaign chief Combeferre who courts the chequebooks with polished grace on one hand and edits the excessively flowery speeches of staffer Jehan with patient exasperation on the other. He hires eponine, the viciously streetsmart ivy scholarship child as the head political strategist together with Cosette, communications director. They are backed increasingly openly by Marius, the eldest son from a long line of rich republicans, himself bedazzled by enjolras from their days at university. Along for the ride is Grantaire, a hardened political journalist who appears to function exclusively on caffeine and alcohol, who trusts all politicians only to the extent that he can throw them but somehow finds himself thinking that maybe, just maybe, his messiah has come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, well, hi. I've basically been promising myself that I would expand my [political AU](http://thymoss.tumblr.com/post/42297309180/rouge-blanc-bleu-a-modern-les-amis-presidential) from tumblr for over a week, now, and I finally buckled down and wrote it out. A couple other lovelies have written variations inspired by my photoset, thanks to which I now feel cripplingly insecure for my fic. I hope it's not altogether terrible, as it's the first I've written in years so. God this is nervewrecking. Hope you guys like it!

Grantaire was a man who did his research. There was no subject on earth that he could not hold forth on rantwise without having first consulted with Google, and then Yahoo just in case, exploited a few academic databases on, and proceeded to grill a couple of primary sources regarding before finally arriving at an utterly overeducated opinion.  The problem was, of course, that stripping any subject down to its metaphorical underpants was never a good look. And so Grantaire gloried in his exposes, but not the salacious sort, never - instead; shades of cripplingly vitriolic, darkly delighted factually dense pieces that broke apart carefully constructed political figures and reassembled them into the Frankensteinian monstrosities they truly were.

 

Hell hath no fury as an idealist broken.

 

Except, this Enjolras character, excuse you, this _Senator_ Enjolras character - defied deconstruction.

 

He'd heard rumors of the man, of course. Those were his first line of information, rumors - because there was never such a thing as a "mere rumor" in Washington D.C. Rumours could be leaks, like the deliberate initial flick against a domino to send a labyrinthine strategy of yet another political machine spiraling. Rumours could be self-fulfilling prophecies, like whispers that would make it to the ears of one of the wannabe messiahs in a town full of false prophets eager to pounce on the least shred of opportunity. Whatever they were, rumors were currency, information traded with ruthless efficiency, tiny diamonds of quantifiable truth that signalled ones' status.

 

But the rumors surrounding Enjolras were different. These rumors were like the first tremors before an earthquake that promised to destroy Washington DC as one knew it.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire, when he was a fresh-faced young journalism student fueling his nights with caffeine in Northwestern, had initially wanted nothing more than to dedicate his career to disaster reporting. And for a period of time he pursued exactly that, running headfirst towards the latest disaster, first in between school terms and internships, and after; a nonstop veritable funhouse of every possible disaster, every obscenely dangerous warzone. It was at this point that Grantaire added alcoholism to the list things that might quite possibly end up killing him.  At first, the need to channel the hells that he saw into pieces that were flawless, but devastating, in their comprehensive objectivity, outweighed the poison that consumed his soul, but eventually - the wounds began gaping too big to patch up, and he found himself riddled with too many holes to stand.

 

So he quit.

 

He returned to Chicago, spent a couple of months drinking himself into a stupor, until his sister broke down his door one day and furiously hauled him up from the mess of absinthe bottles. She cut him off his supply of alcohol, stony-faced to his increasingly pathetic pleas, and shoved a list of newspapers before his face with instructions to apply for every single one of them, and to include the specific request for a position not involving war reportage. To his surprise, he got a call from the Washington Post the next week. They flew him down for an interview, found him suitably overqualified, and before he fully realized it Grantaire found himself in the unfamiliar situation behind a proper office desk, being briefed on his first assignment - to interview a couple of Republican senators on their involvement in the latest sordid scandal.

 

And so his career in Washington began. After those 5 interminably long years, he'd thought that he had seen the worst the world had to offer, at the very ragged edges of humanity itself. But here, the subtle sleaze and casual deceit that laced every interaction manifested itself and throbbed as the dark heart of the nation. Now he was the top political reporter at the Post, and there hadn't been a _single_ politician who wasn't, in essence, an empty vessel whose ideals; were there any; had rotted away long ago, and who was smothered with the slime of ambition and the stink of plutocracy.

 

In a way, Grantaire thought, he really was still chasing disasters.

 

* * *

 

It had been said by several parties, at entirely separate accounts, that Enjolras was a "force of nature". Of what sort, Grantaire had yet to see for himself.

 

* * *

 

The first rule of political gossip acquisition was quantity before quality. Fortunately, being the prize reporter at the Post afforded him certain privileges, including the partial bankrolling of his residual dalliance with alcoholism, particularly that conducted in the name of information gathering. Grantaire was a regular at several pubs which he had, over the course of a few years, established himself as a more than dependable customer, scattered throughout DC to be able to get a sense of the ground at every imaginable slope of the Hill.

 

 

"Enjolras? Oh, you _definitely_ need to keep your eye on that one," Montparnasse laughs, knocking back another round of beer that Grantaire had magnanimously offered to put on his own tab. Young and witheringly brilliant, Montparnasse had been one of the top student journalists while in Georgetown, and had had his pick of broadsheets salivating for him, only for him to write a long, scornful post denouncing the death of the traditional media before taking up a position at Politico, where he enjoyed an enormous degree of journalistic freedom in return for managing several incendiary scoops from his mysterious network of sources spread throughout DC a year. He was one of the few in the city whom Grantaire considered a real friend. The shameless cockiness of the man really just added to the charm, an adornment to a personality that absorbed the utter bullshit of DC and simply chose to laugh in its face. "He's.. God, I sound like such a sap saying it, but there's no other way to put it. He's the real deal."

 

"The real deal? Why, Montparnasse, I do believe you're going soft."

 

"No, no, I really mean it." Montparnasse met his eyes, suddenly, alarmingly serious. "He's just… I mean. He's _more_ than the real deal, even. The man is everything we once dreamed of, when we came to this damn place. It sounds stupid, naive, but when I say he really believes, it's not even just that. He can - he can make _you,_ yes even you, you insuffereable cynic, believe."

 

A mocking retort danced on the tip of his tongue, but Grantaire bit his lip. Montparnasse was so rarely truly genuine, his preferred method of communication limited to firing off a machine-gun round of sarcastic barbs, so this sudden sobering up to deliver a judgment on what was, really, just another politician - well.

 

Montparnasse gave a sudden laugh. "Well, just so you don't think I've completely lost it, R, I would also describe him as - a charming young man, certainly, but occasionally capable of being an asshole. You'll find out why, if you go accost him as you always do."

 

* * *

 

Grantaire wasn't done. After Montparnasse, he plied several more contacts with alcohol for the next few nights, exchanging a few more trinkets of information in return for gossip on Enjolras, although the exchange was rarely even necessary. People were falling over themselves to talk about the man. He seemed to inspire a fervor that burnt years off peoples' face, even those Grantaire considered more hardened than most. They spoke of the usual things, of course - him graduating 2 years early from high school, after having appeared on several televised national debating championships that had several Ivies tripping over themselves to woo him. He ended up choosing Columbia, majoring in political science and minoring in economics; while attending and very often heading every conceivable rally in his spare time. He went on to Harvard law, where his rise through the ranks was meteoric, including heading the Harvard Law Review,  as he graduated at the very top of the class and clerked for the Supreme Court for two years. He quit to pursue community organising alongside lecturing part-time at his alma mater, where his lectures were consistently oversubscribed, and finally, at 30, ran for the Senate as an Independent Candidate.

 

And won.

 

Those were the facts, at least. As for everything else, classmates spoke of Enjolras' utter lack of the typical college social life. Enjolras had divided his time, instead, between writing a series of brilliant treatises ranging from blisteringly pragmatic proposals on revamping broken regulation of the financial industry to the highest echelons of constitutional philosophy; and campaigning for civil liberties on various podiums throughout campus; drawing huge crowds of dazzled students every time he took the stage. Wherever he went, people spoke of his superhuman presence, the man who spoke like an avenging angel. Charisma was a dime a dozen with politicians, but with Enjolras, to call it charisma was almost cheap. He spoke with the conviction of revolutionaries past. In a city of false prophets, the undercurrents to the whispers following Enjolras suggested, prayed even; that perhaps, he was true.

 

Grantaire believed exactly none of it.

 

Golden boys of politics were as disposable as the cigarettes he burned through daily. He knows the type so well it positively bores him - the rich, Ivy league narcissists who ended up as little more than puppets to the military industrial, corporatized corrupt leviathan of politics.  Their chances to rise to political fame was tossed like dice across an oily network of the good-old-boys of the everlasting system.

 

But the spanner in this storyline was that Enjolras was apparently also known for never pulling any strings, arriving at wherever he wanted to go through a blend of ruthless stamina, blinding idealism, and formidable intelligence. His background was wealthy but unremarkably so, and from a young age he had refused to exploit his familial position utterly, going so far as changing his last name at some point to avoid association with his family. In other words, the man was as spotless as a marble statue.

 

There had to be _some_ thing.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire's method of information harvesting was deliberately circular, the _point_ of a politician, after all, was often the ripples that he produced. The point was to trace the span and depth of the ripples, making note of exactly how varied and impressive the stories about the person were, before eventually zeroing in on the source. This was all so to get a feel of the impact of any so-called political star, to determine whether he was a true sun, burning into supernova status and beyond, or just another mediocre comet bound to crash and burn.

 

* * *

 

 

When he filled his editor in on his exploits, she told him in no uncertain terms that at this point onwards his new post was to cover Enjolras up till the primaries, at least. Grantaire thought of protesting, and yet somehow - from everything he'd heard of the man, journalistic professionalism demanded that he met him in person at least once. So he picked up his phone, and made the call Candidate Enjolras' headquarters in DC.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire gets acquainted for those responsible for the Senator's campaign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. So. It's been over a week, and I've been sitting on this too long so. Have a short chapter in the meantime! I hope it's alright because I normally write hideously depressing unplotty pieces if anything and getting the tone and momentum right is a bit of a challenge. Enjoy xx

Grantaire pushes the glass doors, so papered with campaign posters to make it impossible to see through, thus rendering him utterly unprepared for the scene he now faces.

 

 

It isn't so much a campaign room as a warzone- replete with almost ridiculously young, bright eyed persons perched on every available surface, armed with assorted implements that range from at least 2 forms of phones per hand, brandishing post-its and pens as they lob yells across the low-ceilinged room. Their faces burn with the tell-tale glow of a "higher purpose' like so many forest fires; files piled like barricades across desks arranged like trenches. There wasn't a single empty chair in sight, nor a single person that appeared to be keeping still.

 

 

Grantaire navigates his way through the room, careful to avoid the odd blur of a frazzled intern scurrying from desk to desk, balancing towers of coffee mugs in their arms. He flexes his fingers restlessly as the buzz of the room soaks through him. It's electric, the atmosphere of the political war-room, it's intoxicating. It's also a complete lie, and Grantaire feels almost sorry for these passionate young things, throwing their valuable hours of youth onto a pyre that will end up just another charred log on the toxic wasteland of DC. He's itching for a cigarette, and he chews impatiently at his lip, scanning the room for whomever he had spoken on the phone with.

 

 

"Can I help you?"

 

 

Grantaire turns, meeting a pair of deep blue eyes, framed by elegant black lenses that look at him with friendly curiosity.

 

 

"Grantaire, reporter from the Washington Post." he offers, extending a charming smile along with his hand as he sizes the man up with a glance. He's been trained to look for the snags in a person, the frayed edges that he can tug at till a person comes apart at the seams, but this man is _immaculate_. He's wearing a suit that's perfectly tailored while still modest, a campaign button pinned neatly below his collar, and unusual warmth in a smile that lights his entire face up, appealing crinkles accenting intelligent eyes.

 

 

The man takes his hand with a firm shake, eyebrows raised. "Combeferre, campaign manager for the Senator. Surely you aren't _that_ Grantaire?"

 

 

"The one and only," Grantaire replies, allowing a rueful smile across his face. "Enfant terrible journalist extraordinaire, it's been put. But I always say, if you're nothing to hide, then you've nothing to fear from me, sir."

 

 

Combeferre chuckles. "Well, you know as well as I do that's something one can never promise in this business. You called earlier, I'm told. I'm afraid that Senator Enjolras is away at a function now. I can bring you around to meet the gang first," he says, gesturing across the office, the momentum of which continues unabated - "and why don't you join us at the speech tonight?"

 

 

"It'd be my honor," Grantaire says. Combeferre appears to be incredibly - _calm_ \- for a man in a position known to be almost masochistically demanding. He has to squint to even see the dark circles that are inevitably present under his eyes.

 

 

"Excellent. Oh, I'm so sorry, I must get this-" his phone beeps, and Combeferre slips it out of his jacket pocket and smoothly presses his thumb to unlock it. "It appears that you've come at a most opportune time, Mr Grantaire. Candidate Courfeyrac has just returned from an event, and he's be glad to meet you."

 

 

"Please, just call me Grantaire," he offers, with skillful familiarity. 

 

 

"Ah, certainly, Grantaire. Oh, allow me to introduce you to our head political strategist, Eponine," Combeferre adds, steering him to a desk where a girl is glaring at a screen. A pen is stabbed through a messy topknot, a blazer frames the ubiquitous Enjolras/Courfeyrac 2016 tshirt on her. She glances up at the mention of her name, sharp eyes cutting up and down Grantaire in a split second as she gets to her feet.

 

 

"Grantaire, Washington Post, yes?" It's not a question, but a challenge, as is her handshake which all but crushes Grantaire's substantially larger palm. "Nice to finally meet you. We've been monitoring a few key journalists from the papers and were wondering when you'd finally turn up."

 

 

Grantaire, despite himself, is flattered. He's more than earned the title, but the way she states it, factually, seemingly without agenda, warms him like the array of awards lining his walls do not. She stands like an exclamation point, direct and commanding with no tolerance for bullshit, bracketed with a formidable quality of ruthless competence that flickers through her expressions as she notes his modest shrug. She's known for having bested Nate Silver with several predictions, in the process of supporting several formulas she developed for her college dissertation, and had worked for a top bank for a few months before quitting to start up a consultancy and microfinance business on the side, before finally being courted by Enjolras' campaign. She wasn't the first and was certainly not the last brilliant young up-and-comer that Enjolras had drawn into his hurricane of a campaign.

 

 

"I'm a bit of a fan," Grantaire confesses, which is the truth. Before she's joined the campaign, she'd penned a few pieces for a blog flawlessly predicting the outcome of the senatorial elections, with a few withering paragraphs that deconstructed what turned out to be comically bad strategizing of the campaigns.

 

 

That earns him a grin, wide and pleased. "Well, who wouldn't be? Which article was your favorite? I know I had a bit too much fun with a couple of those scumbags, but really -"

 

 

Combeferre cuts in tactfully. "Alright, Eponine, maybe later. We've got to introduce Grantaire here to Jehan, Joly, and the rest of them, before Courf comes back."

 

 

The door slams behind him followed by colorful, cheerful swearing on the state of the late afternoon traffic. Combeferre, rolling his eyes, turns with a raised voice that falls short of a yell, "Please, Courfeyrac. There is _press_ here."

 

 

This is met with a round of even more colorful swearing, and suddenly hands are on Grantaire's shoulders turning him around and grasping his palm as he is greeted with, "Hello! Grantaire, isn't it? 'Ferre here texted ahead of time to warn me to behave. But we've already child-proofed this place, so I really don't see the harm in a little French now and then, and oh right, I'm getting ahead of myself. Courfeyrac! Running mate to the great and terrible Senator, pleased to meet you."

 

 

"It's nice to meet you too," Grantaire manages, as Courfeyrac pauses for breath. 

 

 

"Has 'Ferre introduced you to our lovely gang, then? Who am I kidding, he probably went around the whole office twice just to be sure, and made your acquaintance with our expresso maker on top of it."

 

 

Combeferre is laughing, and Grantaire finds himself grinning, helplessly charmed. The rest of the office has slowed down somewhat for the first time, as the staffers regard their second in command with amusement and not a bit of love. 

 

 

A woman hurries behind Courfeyrac, exasperation writ clearly across her fine features. " _Courfeyrac_. Do we really have to have the talk about media-appropriate language again?"

 

 

Courfeyrac freezes, and his expression rearranges into one that smooths out the glint of mischief into a dazzling, camera-appropriate smile. "Cosette! Cosette, my love. Meet Grantaire, from the Post. Grantaire, Cosette, my beautiful communications director."

 

 

Grantaire takes Cosette's hand, and on a whim, raises it to brush a quick kiss. "A pleasure, Mademoiselle." 

 

 

Cosette giggles at that and shakes her head at him. "Nice try, but it's not going to be that easy. I've met too many of your kind to let you within a 10 foot radius of dear Courfeyrac unchaperoned."

 

 

"It was worth a try," Grantaire responds, easily. "Now, who else of your motley crew have I yet to meet?"

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't obvious, I'm uh, not American, so my knowledge of the American electoral system and otherwise has been gleaned from several serieses of the West Wing, my time gallivanting in the political RPF fandoms, and when the mood to be a political junkie strikes here and then. If I've somehow made any glaring mistakes PLEASE do tell me! 
> 
> ...Also, I don't exactly know how this chapter ended up being so utterly R-centric, but I do promise that the next chapter is different.


End file.
